


The one who sees back (doesn't know shit)

by The_Readers_Muse



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Adult Content, Community: daredevilkink, Foggy can rewind time two seconds onto the past and it is the worst, Foggy has a superpower fic, Kink Meme, M/M, Spoilers for season one, and those things are related, he also loves Matt, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Readers_Muse/pseuds/The_Readers_Muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ice cream hadn't even finished falling before he closed his eyes and wished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the comic or TV rights to Marvel's "Daredevil" or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
> 
> Authors Note #1: Prompt fill for the Daredevil kink meme: "Foggy has a special ability: He can travel two seconds into the past. It may not sound like much, but in a space between life and death, it's a lifetime."
> 
> Warnings: *Contains: adult language, adult content, mild sexual content, spoilers for the whole first season.

He was five and a half - yes, the half was important – when Mickey from the blue-trimmed house down the street threw a baseball at him on purpose. It didn't hit him, but then again it didn't have to. It was his ice cream cone – the same gorgeous double scooped, rocky-road waffle cone goodness he'd been looking forward to for  _days_  - that ended up being collateral damage.

The ice cream hadn't even finished falling before he closed his eyes and  _wished._

It took him years to get it right. To figure out exactly what he'd done to rewind it back. To understand what it all meant. But at the time, all he'd been aware of was his cone flying back into his hand. Blinking as a blur of Foggy-skin snapped back as the truck going past leapt half a meter backwards – muted and retracting. Expression twisting as a sudden, unsettling  _swoop_  dipped like sick-up in his belly just before the world hiccupped and smoothed back into normal again.

And for two glorious seconds, he had it all back. The ice cream. The waffle cone. The unbridled sense of sugary joy. Then he caught the tail end of white and red stitching out of the corner of his eye and he dropped the stupid cone all over again.

He spent the next two days convinced he could control things with his brain. Giving himself his first ever migraine following the kid around, squinting at him. Trying to make him do ridiculous things like trip over his shoe lace or stick a twig up his nose.

Mickey, as you might have guessed, was an asshole.

* * *

It wasn't until he was old enough to get a library card and brave the shitty dial-up at the public library back home - because his family were basically a trope in of themselves and had to yet to embrace the modern age – that he figured out that strange lurch in his belly had a name.

_Déjà vu._

It'd even sounded cool for about a grand total of thirty-five seconds. Right up until he scanned the rest of the article and nearly had the pants scared off him. Or scarred. Maybe both. He ended up tipping a dictionary off one of the shelves to look up what the words: "precognition" and "epilepsy" meant. Consequentially regretting everything before one of the librarians called his parents because they found him half an hour after closing feverishly flipping through the pages of a lobotomy textbook muttering about nerve clusters and antiseptic.

Still, since he'd always been a glass half-full sort of person, once he'd gotten over himself, he decided to embrace the weirdness. He was  _Déjà vu man._ There were worse things. Like Aqua man. He figured that so long as he was above the marine life lameness scale he was in the clear. More or less. Probably less. Anyway-

After that it pretty much became a non-issue. He was already a sponge of weirdness so after a while it barely made the Richter scale. He was adaptable. Malleable. He was squish.  _Foggy squish._ So, he dealt with it. Even used it, here and there. And life, as it always did, trotted on. Threatening to leave him in its metaphorical dust as he eventually broke it to his mom that the butcher's life wasn't for him and instead, starting dreaming about law books and "Legally Blonde" courtroom sass.

Honestly, it was like the mental equivalent of blue balls. Sure, he had it, but he couldn't exactly do anything with it. Could he? After all, other than adverting ice-cream cone disasters and milk spills, what good could going back in time for two seconds actually do for anyone?

A decade or so later, he could have fucking  _punched_ himself.

* * *

 In the same way as Matt was the best thing, he was also the  _worst_  thing.

It was a metaphor in and of itself, but at the end of the day he figured it fit.

Because not only was he a smart, dashingly attractive wounded duck, he was also a smart, dashingly attractive  _blind_ wounded duck whom he probably would have stooped into the Aqua man territory if it meant he could save him from continuously getting beaned by light poles and slow moving cars.

Matt was a magnet for trouble. He kept trying to pester him into leaving his body for science when he died because honestly, there  _had_  to be some sort of metal in his body somewhere that tugged him just a few inches too far. Usually when there were witnesses. Or a hot girl. Or both. Sometimes he swore he did it on purpose. Like, just to remind the world that no matter how well he could zip around on his own, that  _hey- still blind!_

And while the guy didn't have to look in the mirror every day, everyone else did. And spending half a week watching his best bro's bruises fade was  _so_  not kosher. So, of course, halfway through their first semester he appointed himself Matt's protector against all things stationary or otherwise.

It gave him a weird sort of purpose. Using his powers for good. Because while he had crap reflexes and usually couldn't even save Matt from the occasional light pole let alone the asshole pushing their way through the hall despite obviously being in the presence of  _his_  wounded duck, he _did_  have the ability to make sure it didn't happen after the fact or at least mitigate the damage the second or third time around.

The world was a dangerous place on the best of days. For a dude that couldn't see, it was a fuckin' deathtrap. By mid-terms he was half sure he'd mother-henned himself into an ulcer. Which, honestly, could have just been the mid-terms themselves. But either way, whenever the dork flashed him that stupid smile he always did, nothing ever felt more worth it.

He was like a human guide dog and really- he just embraced it. Why the man didn't have one in the first place was a mystery to him. Because one, it was actually a thing. And two, dogs were awesome. He had it on good authority that if he were a dog he would probably be a Golden Retriever of righteousness. But not just any Golden Retriever mind you-  _no_. He'd totally be one of those one hundred and ten percent more  _fluff_ kind where you could tag-team braids into its fur and lose your fingers in it when you petted it. But apparently Matt was immune to the charms of all things dog and decided he liked Foggy better.

Which, hey, that worked for him.

Like, a lot.

Because the whole Matt thing had also kind of been a love at first sight thing that'd aged like expensive wine or a particularly good wheel of apple-smoked cheese. The kind that smelled like feet until it was melting in your mouth and your taste buds were singing like it was rapture time and you were already floating up to the big farm in the sky.

He would do anything for the guy.

Probably even murder.

Okay, maybe not murder.

But like, helping hide the body?

He could do that.

His poker face was shit but he was loyal, so he figured that was something.

But the point was, he'd accepted it, you know?

He was content with being best friends.

Partners.

They were the best damn avocados and he'd rather die than lose that.

Eternal blue-balls be damned.

Hell, they were basically lifers in a completely nonsexual way anyway, and that was okay.

It was cool.

He'd kinda loved the guy since forever, but considering Matt had never-

Yeah, anyway.

Content.

That was him.

_Yup._

And, because his brain was a complete dick and even his own sub-conscious couldn't cut him a break, like, ever apparently-

"Liar liar pants on fire," he muttered into his stack of paperwork. Ignoring Matt's confused head-tilt as he passed by the open door of his office. Somehow balancing a tray of coffees for all of them one handed as they burned the late night oil working on Mrs. Cardena's case against Tully.

Crap.


	2. Chapter 2

" _This city needs me in that mask, Foggy."_

" _Maybe you're right. Maybe it does. But I don't. I only ever needed my friend. I wouldn't have kept this from you, Matt. Not from you."_

" _You don't know that. You don't know that."_

" _Yeah, I do."_

* * *

He wondered if the burning in the pit of his belly made him a hypocrite. It wasn't the same. Not exactly. He knew that. But there were similarities. Just enough to make him feel like shit for the betrayal singeing a hole clear through him. His hands were curled into fists at his sides. Brutal and cutting into his skin in a way that was freeingly unfamiliar. Smelling the alcohol on his breath and the tang of stale sweat. Suddenly understanding why so many doors in the main hall of their old dorm had fist-sized holes punched through the plywood. He needed to do something.  _Anything._  He needed to feel something shatter against his knuckles or he might-

His legs wobbled, unsteady under him as he forced himself to keep standing. Gritting his teeth and looking down at the guy who'd been his best friend for _years_. His partner. The most important thing in his god damned life. The guy he'd spent the last forever fuckin' pining over and  _god_ -

And just like he had when he'd been five and a half - gaping wide-eyed at the soon to be splattered brown and white of his precious ice cream cone - he closed his eyes and  _wished_. But this time he didn't wish for those last two seconds back. No. In that one insanely impulsive moment he wanted it _all_  back. Hurt and rage bubbled up in the back of his throat like a living, breathing,  _seething_ thing and suddenly he wanted every second, minute, hour. Every stupid fucking year. Every laugh, smile and overshare – he wanted it all back.

_All of it!_

Only he was stopped mid-monologue when he realized Matt had stilled. Dragging himself upright on the couch as blank eyes stared right at him. Unwavering and focused. Sending goose-bumps hushing down his skin as the jerk's head tilted, trying to make sense of it. Like there was something happening right in front of him that he could actually see but not understand. A world on fire that had suddenly-

_No._

_No way._

_He couldn't sense_ _**that** _ _could he?_

"Foggy, what-what are you doing? You do that sometimes. The air changes, your body does this…thing. Rippling almost, I can never see it clearly. The heat signature goes off for maybe a second before its back to normal again. What-"

Anger and that wounded-animal-trapped-in-a-corner thing made the rest come easy. Not making him say things he didn't necessarily mean, but rather, letting go of all the words he might have kept any other time. Because boundaries and how one dealt with the dreaded mornings-after were undoubtedly important things – things he handled more or less well on any given day. Only today, his brain to mouth filter wasn't so much as broken as it was pulverized and drowning in its own ashes and honestly, he just couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

"Trying to rewind an entire friendship!" he snarled, ripping himself out of his chair, forgetting his suit jacket as something in the door frame splintered under his hands and a wounded sound issued from Matt's throat. Surprised and frightened and skinned from the inside out as he turned away, eyes stinging.

" _Foggy...no, wait, don't-"_

It hurt worse than anything. But he didn't take it back. Letting the seconds breathe into minutes as he slammed down the stairs and into the muggy city air. Leaving Matt and his stupid crying face, his bruised body, crusting blood and sharp lies behind. Wondering if any part of it had been real.

* * *

After the whole Fisk thing and everyone's revenge boners having been more or less appeased, they spent a long time dancing around it. Around what had happened and where they stood as the foundations of what they were to each other peeked out of the burning wreckage of their lives like the ankles of a Victorian era virgin on her wedding night.

He put on his supportive face. He kind of still hated everything about it. But honestly, at the end of the day he was too lazy and too good-natured to hold a grudge. Either way he knew he was a goner when Matt started smiling again. A tentative curl at the very corner of his mouth that begged to be echoed. It took time, but eventually he found himself returning them. This time around he didn't have to ask how Matt knew when he did. He just did. He didn't pry beyond that. He didn't want to know. Too mindful of the tentative, fledgling truce to risk what they had left on something that didn't really matter in the long run.

Still, it was a line of questioning that naturally led to him thinking of ways he could, well, help maybe? Like a five step plan to a healthy relationships check list on the back cover of some girly magazine. He was all about tending the garden – so to speak.

_Take an interest in their interests!_

_Get involved!_

_Show them what you have in common and find a new hobby for yourself at the same time!_

Fighting crime was an interest that had been Matt's alone for so long that he wasn't even sure if the man wanted help. They were still feeling out the whole trusting one another thing and he was kind of desperate to make it work. Enough that his brain was picturing him and Matt teaming up – the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and Déjà vu man taking on the city. Epic super bros or whatever. Matt could do the punchy stuff and he could do the rewinding whenever something went tit up.

It was probably a signal to humanity everywhere that he was trying too hard, but at least he was working at it, okay? He'd tend their freaking garden with a chainsaw and a flamethrower if it would get the job done. He was _that_  out of fucks to give.

Matt seemed to live for it. He even swung over to his apartment sometimes – halfway through the night and generally bleeding somewhere. Clambering through his window with a goofy ass grin because he was a complete dork and  _god_ \- he could not even begin to count the ways he loved the bouncy asshole. He always acted like it was a duty. But he could tell there was a part of him that lived for it. Probably like his old man had lived for the ring, for the sweat and blood and that crowd of people chanting his name. Matt probably heard the same thing in the echoes of dark alleys and the grunting scrape of good for nothing skin splitting under his fists.

_Probably._

Thing was though, he  _wasn't_ Matt. Life or death situations weren't his thing. His thing was going back two seconds in time to save an old lady from getting curb stomped by a bus or taking a lick of peanut butter - which he was deathly allergic - just to see what it tasted like before rewinding back before it touched his tongue. Grinning as he crossed yet another monumentally stupid thing off his bucket list.

Not to mention he kinda still hadn't gotten around to telling Matt that he was, well, accidentally a superhero too. Or, you know, a super-weirdo. Whatever worked. A reality which was made only slightly damning due to Matt having lied by omission all this time and him crawling up his ass about it while he was quietly bleeding all over his shitty, charity-bin couch. All along still sitting on his own deep dark secret and hating himself for being fifty shades of a hypocrite about it, but still having no idea how to broach it or prove it or, well- anything really.

Staying silent seemed like the less damning of all the options.

Which was probably what Matt had said to himself once upon a time and- _urgh_.

That had come disgustingly full circle, hadn't it?

God, he was a mess.

He was just not cut out for this.

Something had to give.

So, naturally, what happened next was a complete accident.


	3. Chapter 3

He should probably admit upfront that he might have panicked.

_A little._

In his defense, kissing Matt had made perfect sense at the time. It was like a distraction plus a victorious penis moment that he was completely on board with until Matt shivered across his lips and started mouthing at the corners. Making these desperate little sounds into the dry-red of them as the realization of what he'd just done smacked him clear across the face like Karen wailing a bargain-sized package of post-it notes at him after three solid days of whining.

He'd just kissed his best friend.

_On the lips._

Okay, but maybe he'd skipped ahead a bit.

_Jesus._

This was not a promising start.

* * *

It was stupid.

How it all happened?

Stupidly, monotonously boring.

Like, the living personification of his life times a hundred thousand in the worst possible way.

It was rude, okay?

_Rude._

Here he was, one Jason Derulo song away from a complete emotional melt down and meanwhile fate was plotting again him. Thinking plotty things and probably humming plotty songs. His particular brand of paranoia was a gift. It really was. Finely crafted after about a decade of friendship with Matt Murdock – his blind and handsome wounded duck bff. Who had naturally turned out to be the B-movie equivalent of pulling the world's best 'Ugly Duckling' transformation, with benefits. Because that's what they called Matt's superpowers these days,  _benefits._

In retrospect things had been going more or less well since Fisk's arrest and the mysterious deaths and disappearances of his numerous flying butt-monkeys, he should have known something like this would be edging dark across the horizon.

Not like that made him feel better or anything.

* * *

The three of them were in the office, diddling around during the last half hour before they usually took their lunch. Meaning Matt was pretending to work with one ear-bud in, Karen was swearing at the copier and he was leaning against the door jam, watching like the whole thing was his favorite soap opera.

Which, of course, it kind of was.

And, like these things always do, it happened way too fast to process.

"Stupid piece of junk, argh!" Karen spat, kicking forcefully at the side of the ancient photocopier with the toe of her heel. "I'd have you dismantled for your parts if you were friggen' worth anything! Work damnit!"

The words were barely free of her mouth when a horrible creaking suddenly issued from the ceiling panel above. Making Karen pause in mid-kick and Matt to twitch from his corner like a dog waking up from a daydream. Mouth open like he was about to say something as blind eyes fixed on the patch of water-stained cork-board and age warped plastic.

And  _holy shit_ , was that concaving?

That was all he got.

That split second of growing awareness before-

He was already moving, knowing he had to time this right if he had any hope of getting Karen out of the way. Concentrating on rewinding the moment the panel broke free from the ceiling as he made it around the edge of the desk. He caught her by the waist and yanked – lifting her slim little body up into the air completely as the breath whooshed out of her lungs and he turned them both. Hunching over her protectively as the panel slammed down in an uneven avalanche of broken metal, plasterboard, and glass right were Karen had been standing only half a second before. Feeling the wind of it feather through his hair as Karen pulled in a shuddering breath, then another - tiny little ribcage fluttering under his careful hands. A sound accompaniment to the startled shriek from the receptionist for the publishing company downstairs.

"Jesus Christ, Foggy," Karen whispered, turning in his arms like one of those tiny twirling ballerinas they screwed into those ugly little music boxes. "I didn't even see you move, thank you…I just-  _oh god_ , thank you."

He let go of her slowly, breathing hard, high on endorphins and adrenaline from the close call as he nodded - numb. Feeling the hair at his temples start to string with a clammy burst of horrified sweat as all the ifs, ands, and buts roared through him like a sky-train on steroids.

 _Fuck, that'd been close._   _He almost hadn't made it in time. He almost-_

The sweat turned cold – icy and chill like pneumonia building cancerously in the lungs - as Matt made a small noise just behind him. So wounded and damningly surprised that he didn't even have to turn around to know. Because while Karen was making angry noises. Heels click-clicking as she poked about in the wreckage and glared up at the hole in the ceiling – muttering about contractors and blown budgets - Matt was looking at him like he  _knew_.

_Like he'd seen._

Like he was putting everything together going back for months – no, _years_  – and it was all about to crash down on top of him like a whole roof full of those moldering ceiling tiles and he just couldn't deal with it. Not now. Not when everything had started clicking between them again. When he could look at Matt's stupid face and not want to punch it with his fists or curl up on the floor in a miserable ball of Foggy-skin and cry.

He ended up doing the only logical thing left to him at that point. He rabbited. Muttering something about needing a moment and to go to lunch without him as he grabbed his shit and banged out the door in less than a minute. Unable to really hear anything over the mantra of:  _you fucked up, you fucked up, oh fuck I fucked up,_  that was playing on repeat inside his head.

He thought he heard Matt call his name as he half sprinted down the hall. But in all the panic and his need to be anywhere but here - pinned underneath the weight of all the shit he'd let spiral out of control - he couldn't be a hundred percent sure.

It was probably just wishful thinking.

Probably.

* * *

He got as far as the subway before he realized how utterly futile it all was. He was about a couple hundred numbers away from being broke – according to the nearest atm - and his best friend was a sub-sonic satellite dish of weirdness. Where the hell could he even go and what was the point?

He did his best though. His life was basically one giant asshole and he was continually getting fucked over. And when you'd lived  _that_ long under  _that_  shadow, you learned to take your half-victories and wishful thinkings when you can get them.

He called Marci when he got tired of his own thoughts. Letting himself be bullied into meeting her at an expensive bar after she'd finished at Landman and Zachs for the day. The kind where all your drinks came with orange wedges and fancy brand name glasses that would have had Rosie exorcist-spinning on her sticky bar floor.

It wasn't until after he'd knocked back a few that he finally got the courage to test his theory on a living subject. Working on the mildly comforting hypothesis that no matter  _when_  he'd let the beans slip, the reaction was never going to be positive. It was mostly just to make himself feel better – probably like how confession seemed to work for Matt. But he clung to it like it was the sole life raft in the middle of a shark infested ocean.

"So, hypothetically, what would your reaction be if I told you I had the ability to change the past? Like not a lot. More like rewind time, actually. But only for two seconds. Uh, hypothetically," he started lamely, slamming his glass back onto the table with a bit more force than was necessary. Gaining himself the stink eye from the impeccably dressed waiter who had already hit on Marci at least half a dozen times since they'd snagged a side table.

He missed the coaster on purpose, just to watch the douchebag twitch.

At first she just fixed him a look that spoke clearly of:  _miss me with your Murdock domestic's bullshit_ before flipping back her hair and tapping a long, scarily manicured nail across the table. He'd expected her to laugh. To flutter her lashes and say something vapid and vain and predictable. But instead she just looked at him. Like,  _really_ looked. Content to take her time about it as she nodded shallowly to herself and signaled for the waiter to bring the check. Smelling like a goddess as she leaned over the table and let her hand rest over his for a smattering of beats. Reminding him that hey, maybe, just maybe, she had a soul after all.

Until, of course, she ruined it.

"Time to go home, Foggy bear," she told him, not unkindly. Letting the words sink between the layers of whiskey and tequila before letting a bit of that old Marci warmth ooze back into her shady Slytherin eyes. Giving him a clear once over, a gaze he knew from experience promised no strings attached sexy times in many of his most favorite positions.

"Unless you want to go home with me?"

He took a cab home.

* * *

He angled back home eventually, feeling like a vaguely disgruntled homing pigeon as he stared up at his building and decided to take another lap around the block.  _At 3 fricking am._  Hating himself for being so disgustingly predictable. He had the entire city around him and all he really wanted to do was go home and crawl under the covers for a couple years and pretend he hadn't screwed everything up.

He told himself stories to pass the time. How Matt was probably out and about, bringing the pain on unsuspecting baddies all over Hell's Kitchen. How Karen got to go home and live another day all due to a gift he didn't understand. How the hell they were going to pay to fix the stupid roof and how drafty it would be come winter. How his apartment had never looked so intimidating. How he had three unanswered texts from Karen and two from Matt. How he hated everything about how far he'd let things slide. How he should have told Matt about what he could do the day everything had come crumbling down between them.

None of them were happy endings, but then again, he didn't exactly think he deserved one either.


	4. Chapter 4

He nearly pissed himself when he closed the door and a distinctly Matt-shaped smudge blurred into existence. Sitting front and center on his living room couch, stuffed between empty pizza boxes and half crumpled beer cans – shrouded in complete and utter darkness.

" _Jesus, fuc-"_

"Done running?" Matt asked, voice only slightly broken - overused like smoothed over gravel. Rough but like he was reminding himself not to give in to temptation and make it hurt. Doing a better job of this whole mess than he had, months ago. Back when the meaning of the word betrayal had never seemed so stark.

He swallowed hard when Matt stood, unfolding himself from the couch with a tinny rattle before stepping into the light. Mouth set, chapped red and unhappy as sightless eyes found his easily.

He wasn't wearing his suit.

And that was a good thing.

Hopefully.

"Depends, are you going to chase me if I do?" he finally responded, shoving his hands in his pockets as the smell of himself – fading aftershave, damp linen and sweat – met his nose in uneven waves.

He choked on the rest. Suddenly realising that he had no idea what context he meant that in or what Matt had even meant voicing it in the first place. But suddenly everything was moving again, and this time he wasn't even tempted to slow it all down and hit rewind. Because this time Matt was taking one step forward, expression tentative and just shy of desperate – desperate to make everything okay – desperate to fix this. So fucking honest about it that he could cry.

"Foggy, please, you need to tell me-" Matt started, licking his lips and shifting – stance cautious but achingly trusting. Like he just wanted to understand. Like he _had_  to. Like he had to make sense of it. "What was-"

And he just couldn't.

Because the question of  _what_  inevitability ended up being attached to a whole host of other, far more complicated questions. Things like  _why_  and  _how could you?_ Like where do we go from here and is it worth doing this all over again? Like how does it work and are you sure it isn't just a fluke? Things like can you stop? Why can't you just be normal? Why didn't you tell me? Why-

The point was, his brain was running on empty and scrambling the same time as Matt was putting one foot in front of the other. Gaining confidence while he was getting backed into a corner with gaping pin-pricks already poked through his personal space bubble. Turning the air close and thick and confining and, well, he didn't exactly do his most inspired thinking when he was waiting for the best thing in his life to crash and burn around him.

He wasn't sure which of them was more surprised when he caught Matt by the curve of his shoulder and reeled him in. The action slow and careful even though he knew now that the man would have 'seen' the gesture coming, before flinging everything he had into grabbing his best friend by the collar of his suit and mashing their stupid lips together.

And yeah, 0/10 on the best distraction strategy, to be honest.

It wasn't like he was complaining.

 _But damn_.

It wasn't his best kiss. Depressingly, it didn't even make it into his top ten. Because while he was vibrating and counting down the last seconds before the complete and utter meltdown of their entire friendship, Matt tasted like the Caesar salad he must have had for lunch - of stale tongue and old blood. Which was an awful combination any day of the week and tasted even worse second hand.

But he didn't stop and weirdly enough, neither did Matt.

Because Matt was kissing him back, tentative, shocked and shy. Giving back what he was dishing out and as soon as that bombshell sunk in, he started going at it like absolutely nothing else in the world mattered more than the feeling of Matt giving in underneath him.

It was a mutual surrender.

A cry for more.

A-

They broke apart, gasping. Part of him knew Matt had started it, no matter how quickly he'd followed suit. Momentarily second guessing himself as Matt's knuckles tightened their death grip around his tie like he was two seconds away from strangling him with it. Heart pumping double like a heart attack as he caught his lip between his teeth and slowly got used to the taste of his own blood. Bracing himself for… _whatever_  as Matt panted hotly, beautifully wrecked but firming up quick. Dark lashes fluttering at half-mast as all the words he could have said got tangled in the quiet.

"…Matt?"

Watching Matt try and put himself back together was like watching something so intensely sinful he knew he'd never be rid of the mental images for as long as he lived. Because Matt? Matt was fucking  _obscene_. He wasn't just temptation, he was the shiniest freakin' apple in the entire Garden of Eden. Making him want to put his fist through the wall or maybe hump something as the man ghosted his fingers over his own lips. Wondering and luxurious like just that was a small pleasure in of itself.

"…Matty? Oh god, can you- can you please just say something?" he tried again, unsure if the guy was having an 'I kissed a dude and I liked it' moment or if he'd actually broken him for real this time. But Matt just swayed in place. Looking punch-drunk and violently fuckable as the hand around his tie tightened again.

And he  _had_  liked it.  _Matt had._ He might be an idiot but there were some things he excelled at and one of them was reading people. Not like Matt did. No. He was better at it in a way that didn't get a place on Matt's superpower register. Because in all the ways Matt was an emotionally stunted baby giraffe, _he_  was a full grown bull elephant with a trunk for people and their crazy emotions reading game.

And Matt? Yeah, Matt had  _definitely_ been all about sucking face with the Foggster.

Hell, even now the man was killing him softly. Licking across his lips like he was chasing his taste. Still breathing – hard and rough around the edges – like he wanted more -  _everything_ \- but didn't know how to ask for it. Also, you know, the fact that somewhere between point a and point b, the man's hard-on had started grinding determinedly into the crease of his thigh. Something which pretty much gave the rest away on default.

It was just all the other shit he was worried about.

"I, uh, have a thing," he admitted. Because honestly, it was about frickin' time and if he didn't get it out at least once he was probably going to spontaneously combust all over his shitty apartment walls in a very unpleasant way.

"Uh-huh," Matt breathed, nosing happily into the crook of his neck and inhaling like it was the best thing. Like  _he_ was the best thing and  _wow_ his blood pressure.

"I mean, I know I should have told you about it and I didn't and that's on me so yeah, I suck the big one. No arguments there. But I didn't know how to get it out-oh man, so lame. Anyway… I don't know how it works, but I can, I don't know, rewind time a little bit? Only two seconds, though. Sucky right? " he babbled, wiping sweaty hands across his pant legs – nervous and not exactly sure what he was doing other than he was handling his words like explosive diarrhea and had idea how to stop.

His phone beeped.  _Marci._  He ignored it.

"Still, it's come in handy more than once. Uh, you remember that time when you nearly got creamed by that mom-van our first week at Landman and Zach? And well, you 'saw' the whole Karen and ceiling thing- I just used air quotes. And-"

"Foggy?" Matt interjected, lazy and slow as stubble rasped across stubble and he wasn't sure which of them was more wrecked for it.

"Yeah?"

"Later," Matt insisted, nipping at the curl of his lips, endearingly off-centre as a bold hand wormed it's way underneath his shirt to spread out across the bare skin of his side and-oh.

_Oh._

"Kay," he breathed, finally catching the clue bus. Tentatively running his hand down the curve of the man's cheek, breath catching as Matt pushed into it, before catching him by the chin and tipping it up. Kissing him for real this time, messy and slick and far too relieved to rally together any kind of finesse as Matt kissed him back – sloppy and beyond enthusiastic. Lips following his, barely a half second behind every time as he nibbled at the corners of his smile and smothered a laugh into the sweat collecting at his temple.

Because really,  _of course_  it would happen this way.

They were _both_  idiots.

He could live with that

More than live with that, actually.

* * *

They ended up completely destroying his living room.

Fuck the bedroom.

Bedrooms were overrated, anyway.

Other than beds.

Beds with box springs and mattresses were kind of awesome, actually.

But he was flexible.

Or, well, Matt was and at the end of the day that was the important thing.

He'd had intentions about getting them there.

On an actual bed.

But Matt was a very determined man who was not above using tricks that were probably illegal in most countries in order to get what he wanted, when. And hey, what can he say? He was a people-pleaser at heart.

* * *

The thing about having only two seconds was that it was all about the little things. The little moments. The fractions of an inch and the small victories. It may not sound like much, but in a space between life and death? It's a lifetime. And yes, the analogy was corny as shit and he kind of wanted to suffocate himself with one of the couch cushions but it didn't make it any less true.

Hell, he'd lived a good portion of his life – and he meant  _really lived_  – in those moments. Taking risks. Doing something completely crazy. Saving people. Trying to put his best foot forward. Trying to fix one of his own mistakes. Other people's mistakes. Putting himself out there. The list went on.

But not this one.

Never this one.

Because this? Right here and right now with Matt rolling them across the worn carpet and mouthing desperately down the nubs of his spine. Fingers skating down sweat-slick skin and him having long lost all dignity as he splayed out and encouraged Matt's determined quest for lube and condoms.

This didn't need to be repeated until he got it right.

It was already perfect.

And even if it wasn't, he wouldn't had had it any other way.

* * *

"No more going back," Matt whispered later, later when he had rug burn across his back and his ass was aching in a rather pleasant way. Earnest enough that he didn't have to strain too hard to realize that this latest bout of mind-reading wasn't due to the whole super power thing. It was everything else.

It was about the maw that'd opened up between them and the bridge they'd built to navigate it. It was about no more raised voices and brooding silences. No more secrets. No more hiding. The emotion behind it threatened to get stuck in his throat.

"Even if I was, I wouldn't go anywhere without you buddy," he returned, the words coming up surprisingly easy after they slipped past the cement mixer that had currently taken up residence in his windpipe. Wondering if this was the appropriate time to pinch himself to make sure this was all real. Because the truth was, Matt had  _always_  been his past, his present and his future. He'd known that for ages. Both of them had. It had just taken them years to figure what that future was going to look like.

Matt was the best thing he'd ever repeated and honestly, he planned on a whole lot of similar do-overs during the next few days. Just not in the way you'd think. It was almost the weekend and they were the masters of their own destiny and he was dead set on neither of them moving in any way other than the sexy way for the foreseeable future. And if the peanut gallery had anything to say on the matter, well-

Matt could suck it.

_Literally._


End file.
